


maybe

by flightofwonder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (TV)
Genre: (being done to the child POV character so please stay safe), Avengers Family, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Child Abuse, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Manipulation, Family Bonding, Father-Daughter Relationship, Foster Care, Gaslighting, Gen, Rhodey is an avenger bc i say so, and i love them, because i'm a grown ass adult and this is my fic, but tbh i set up some stuff for thorbruce, foster child, i believe in self care, kinda-not-really-original characters, no romantic relationships other than the canon ones, this is a Bruce Banner-centric fic, yes this is a "they all live in avengers tower" fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofwonder/pseuds/flightofwonder
Summary: Bruce Banner is still adjusting to life as an Avenger when the Hulk saves a teenage girl's life. This sets off a chain of events that neither of them could have anticipated. But in the end, maybe, they'll find what they've both wanted for so long: a family.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Avengers Team, Bruce Banner & Jodie
Comments: 64
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written! Which is: a mash-up of one episode from The Incredible Hulk 70s show, a "They All Live In The Tower" Avengers AU where Bruce Banner gets the attention he deserves, and several versions of Annie. Yes, the musical. Strap in folks. 
> 
> In all honestly, this is something I've been working on for such a long time, it's both strange and nervewracking to actually post it somewhere. I wrote this primarily for myself, but if others get enjoyment out of it, then I'll be even happier.
> 
> The Incredible Hulk episode that this fic is (loosely) inspired by is called Falling Angels, and it's episode s3e16. Jodie, the main protagonist other than Bruce, comes from that episode. You don't need to watch it to know what's happening in this fic, but it's a delightful episode and I'd highly recommend it.
> 
> This fic is dedicated to everyone who ever put up with me ranting about Jodie, both on tumblr and over at the ThorBruce discord and Hulk discord. This fic is especially dedicated to Naomi @ireadtoomuchfantasy, who introduced me to the episode and first listened to my weird ideas for this fic centuries ago. You're the best!
> 
> This chapter is from Jodie's POV, but it will switch between hers and Bruce's as the fic goes on. This is one of the longer chapters, because exposition for characters you don't know. The bulk of this is written, as it was my NaNoWriMo project for 2019 (and my first one!), but there are still some chapters to write and most of it needs to be severely edited. I will still try and update it as much as I can. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you enjoy it!

_Dear Future Parent(s),_

_First of all - hi!_   
_(I know I start all of my letters like that, but it feels weird not to)_

_The last time I wrote, I told you I finally submitted my application for the Avengers Tower PR Internship. I went back and forth a ton on whether or not I should do it, because, you know, ‘eat the rich’, but! You heard all that last time. Now I’m here with news… that future-you probably already knows, but past-me sure didn’t, so here it goes:_

_I got accepted!!!!!!!_

_Okay yeah, I’m basically an intern’s intern on the Avengers PR team, and I’m sure I’ll mostly be fetching coffee, taking orders, yadda yadda… but is it bad that I’m still excited???_

_I mean, don’t get me wrong: I know I’m the diversity hire. Actually, that might be too generous… the diversity AND foster kid hire. I don’t know if I am supposed to be insulted just thinking about it, but diversity initiatives exist for a reason, and I can’t be the only black foster kid in the entire city who applied, right? I don’t think I’m the only one who can scrounge up a sob sorry for a cover letter and submit a half-decent journalist article — and I know, I know, PR isn’t journalism, I had to reiterate that enough times in my application — so that’s means, at least on some basis, they hired me for me? Right???_

_Ugh I just reread that paragraph. Editing, I don’t know her. In my defense, I’m writing this with pencil and paper, and erasing is so annoying._

_Anyway!_

_Yeah! I got in! I’m going to WORK at the AVENGERS TOWER. I will be delivering shitty downtown coffee to people who work DIRECTLY BELOW ACTUAL SUPERHEROS. Not like that matters! I’m a professional, so whatever, I mean I’ll be SO whatever when I get there, Black Widow who?_

_Before you get judgmental, I’m not that kind of teenage girl. The idea of being a “fan” of heroes is still weird. I might hate them if I ever met them in real life, you know? And the world is only just starting to believe in heroes again. We live in a pretty disillusioning world, after all. I’m not about to just drink the cool-aid because the rest of the world is chugging. Past “heroes” turn out to be bad people all the time._

_But here’s a secret (that I didn’t even put in my essay to milk for all its worth): it’s nice to be able to believe in heroes again. At least a little bit. Because actually, truly saving people’s lives? I think that might be the coolest thing a human being can do._

_(And non-human-being. Who knows what Thor is, really?)_

_So, don’t worry, future-parent. I’m not becoming uncritical because I’m technically working for them for a summer. The veneer of glory and tight suits can’t blind me!_

_But cm’on, getting to live in Avengers Tower? For an entire SUMMER? That’s just cool._

_Next step is to get guardian approval for the forms, but I’m not too worried. At least, I don’t think I should be? Mrs. Rita has been pretty chill as of late. If I pitch in an_

“Jodie?”

At the creak of a door, Jodie quickly stashed her notepad and pencil under the covers of the bed. When the woman entered, all she could see was a teenage girl casually lying on her bed, one hand on her phone, the other fiddling with the gold heart locket resting against the hollow of her neck.

“Yeah Mrs. Rita?” She didn’t think she sounded caught-out, but Jodie resisted the urge to chew her bottom lip all the same. A slight breeze that sneaked in with the opened door threatened to rustle similar letters that were sitting in an open shoe box below her bed, and Jodie crossed her legs, hopefully keeping the attention on her. Instead, she offered a smile to her foster mother as she walked into her bedroom. 

Well, it wasn’t really _her_ bedroom. But Mickey was hardly at home anymore, always out around the city doing who-knew-what. If her foster sister slept here, it was always in the middle of the day. Jodie would sometimes come home from school and spot a mess of blond curls in the opposite twin bed and breathe a sigh of relief. 

So, of course, Mickey wasn’t here that afternoon, and Jodie was almost positive that Mrs. Rita wasn’t going to ask where she was. 

It wasn’t her fault that she’d given up, really. Jodie figured that if her kid kept running away, there was only so much she could do for her. She was bound to give up eventually.

(There was a voice in the back of her head that said: _but parents shouldn’t give up on kids_. That voice helped her sometimes, helped her trust her gut around strangers and in school, but when it came to Mrs. Rita, it didn’t know what it was talking about. It was just the bitter, suspicious part of a girl who’d been through the wringer too many times. It wasn’t rational, just… a gut-punch reaction. Jodie was pretty sure she couldn’t trust it with this.

Especially since that voice had a lot to say about Jodie hiding those hopeful letters from her supposed future mother.)

“What are you doing in here?” Mrs. Rita sauntered over in wedges that accentuated her already lithe, pale form. She wore a familiar long patterned dress that managed to steal the color from whatever room it entered, and it fluttered at the sleeves as she sat down at the edge of Jodie’s bed. 

Her tone wasn’t accusatory, exactly. Her voice was light as a feather, as usual, but her smile looked a little too tight around the edges - Jodie’s least favorite. That smile balled up little knots in Jodie’s stomach that always took a few hours to untangle.

Not that she had any reason to react like that. Mrs. Rita had never hurt her, never even raised her voice. Jodie was just being overly-sensitive. She should know better. 

The edge of her notebook dug accusingly into her thigh.

“Trying to mooch on Señora Manchela’s WiFi,” Jodie’s replied casually, and it wasn’t exactly untrue. Mrs. Rita didn’t see the point in paying for WiFi when there were hot spots all around the city, and Jodie had learned what spots were reliable and which ones weren’t. 

“Well. Hope springs eternal, I guess,” said Mrs. Rita, tucking a dirt-brown lock of hair behind her ear, a gold hoop flashing against her painted nails. Her hair was her best feature; she often said as much when she groomed in the morning. When Jodie tried to join the conversation once, Mrs. Rita glanced sideways at Jodie’s wavy afro locks that landed right below her chin, then gave her a thin smile that almost looked apologetic and proceeded to quickly change the subject as Jodie fought her curls into discreet pigtails. Jodie tried not to take it personally. She knew from past foster parents that white women had no idea what to do with her hair and she’d long since learned how to make due herself.

That was what Mrs. Rita was all about: being self-reliant. She was a single foster parent, so of course she valued independence, but she made a point of the importance of everyone in the house chipping in. Mrs. Rita wasn’t really a Mrs. — at least, Jodie didn’t think so. She didn’t wear a ring, and she didn’t really have that widow-vibe. Or a divorcee vibe. From what Jodie could gather from news stories and telenovelas, divorcees were usually a lot richer than Mrs. Rita, and a lot older. She probably was considered a young woman, though it was still weird for Jodie to conceptualize. She was still at that age where the wall between “young” and “old” was high and wide enough that she couldn’t look over it. 

Her long cheekbones and sharp lips were what made her look older, Jodie was pretty sure. And the make-up that kept her lashes long and luxurious. If there was any feature that would make you suspect her of being a wealthy divorcee, it was definitely the make-up. The apartment and the clothes, not so much. 

Her apartment on the west side of Harlem wasn’t shabby, exactly. The paint wasn’t peeling, but it wasn’t brand new, either. Everything in Mrs. Rita’s apartment spoke of a woman in flux, never quite committing to one lifestyle. Beads hung from the doorway of the kitchen, a remnant of a past boho-theme, and the bathroom had so many palm trees, you could convince yourself that you were in a Caribbean-themed motel, but nothing classier than that. 

Purchases tended to come and go, too. The exercise bike had stayed a grand total of two days before being returned for approximately four toaster ovens. The constant change was jarring to Jodie sometimes, but it was necessary. That was what the life of a saleswoman was like - at least, that was what Mrs. Rita said.

The older woman scooted closer on the mauve colored comforter, and Jodie pulled a leg up to her chest, shielding the suspicious crinkling noises as best she could. 

“You know,” Mrs. Rita started, “We wouldn’t have to ‘mooch’ on Wifi if Mickey pulled her weight a bit more around here.”

Jodie had to bite back a defense for her foster sister, especially since she wasn’t sure she could be defended. So she just smiled at her foster mom and kept her opinions to herself, instead getting ready to indulge in what she was sure would be a long rant from Mrs. Rita about her day…if she was lucky. The other option wasn’t as easy to soothe away.

( _Mrs. Rita never asked about Jodie’s day_ , that annoying voice reminded her, but Jodie kicked it to the back of her mind easily enough; she was a kid, her problems were probably boring to an adult like Mrs. Rita. And it wasn’t like she was the first foster parent to never ask.)

So instead of recounting who didn’t sit with her at lunch that day - which was very pointedly everyone, since Melina made everyone get up and move when Jodie tried sitting with a few familiar faces she could recognize since starting school a few months ago - Jodie instead swallowed back the memory, feeling it like a shard of glass in her throat, and smiled sympathetically. “You okay?” 

“Sweetie, I’m always okay,” Mrs. Rita said, patting Jodie’s arm in what Jodie interpreted as affection, much to her silent delight. “But you're a dear for asking.”

Jodie allowed herself to be relieved for approximately one second before Mrs. Rita continued, perking up as an idea seemed to come to her. 

“Actually,” Mrs. Rita started, and Jodie had to stifle the urge to sigh, knowing full well what was coming. “I could be a bit better. _We_ could be, I mean.” There was a significant pause, then Mrs. Rita looked Jodie right in the eyes with a soft smile. “As a family.” 

The words were like a shock to her system, and suddenly every atom in Jodie’s body was vibrating with excitement, even with the metaphorical ax hanging over her head that she knew would fall any second. She knew what Mrs. Rita was going to ask, but… this was different. Mrs. Rita hadn’t used the f-word before. 

She reached for the golden locket at her neck, the last relic from her first family suddenly feeling heavy against her dark skin, as if signaling this was the missing link she’d been waiting for all these years. It was only half of a locket, the other half presumably with whoever left her at the hospital when she was a newborn. The broken piece of jewelry was all she had of her birth family; even her name, Jodie Smith, was given to her after the fact. But the fact that they left even something so small and broken to her… it had to mean something. Maybe not much, but something. 

She’d often fidget with the locket when she was nervous or just bored, but she especially reached for it when she needed comfort, sometimes imagining the birth mother who left it with her was reassuring her through a scrap of old metal. Jodie had no idea what she had even looked like, but still, she held on tight and tried to think of her.

She shifted and crossed her legs, leaning forward with her big brown eyes alight. “Yeah?”

“Oh, we’re very close now, Jodie,” Mrs. Rita said, learning in almost conspiratorially, her golden hoops swinging to and fro. “Very close, and we will be all set after. You and me, and even Mickey.” 

They stared at each other for a moment, but Jodie had to break away and look at her lap, releasing her hold on the locket. Her excitement waned as quickly as it came. When Mrs. Rita looked at Jodie like that, two feelings always went to war with one another:

_I hate this. I hate this so much._

_I want this. I want this so much._

“When?” Jodie asked, and her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t sure if Mrs. Rita even heard her.

“Well, no time like the present, right?” She clapped her hands together, immediately pleased, and even though part of Jodie wanted to throw up right then at the very idea, she thought of the way Mrs. Rita said _family_ , and she knew she had to do it.

“Okay. Okay, how much?” Jodie asked, her fingers itching to return to the chain around her neck, but suddenly worried it would come across to Mrs. Rita as the nervous tell it was.

“Just a couple hundred for now, how does that sound?” Mrs. Rita’s voice was like honey, speaking about robbery as if it were an every day errand. It didn’t make the idea easier to swallow.

Jodie felt herself nod anyway.

“Wonderful. Now remember, be careful.” The mattress bounced a little as the older woman sat up from the bed, and at the feeling of coarse paper against her right leg, Jodie remembered the news she had to share.

“Oh, Mrs. Rita!” Jodie said, brightening. “Guess what, I —”

“Tell me when you’re finished, hm?” her foster mother said, back already turned and door closing shut.

“— got the internship.” The only response was the creak of the stairs as she descended.

* * *

Jodie was pretty sure that thieves didn’t throw up at the very idea of stealing stuff. But she did, and every time. In the corner of an alleyway, Jodie hacked up her dinner, already mourning the loss of it — meals didn’t come cheap, after all — but knowing that it was better to do it here than in the middle of a heist.

 _Heist_. Like she was in _Ocean’s Eleven_ instead of stealing petty cash from innocent people on the West Side.

“She’s got you doing another one, huh?”

Jodie spat onto the concrete, before looking up at the sound of a familiar voice. A teenage girl leaned against the red-brick gate that marked the entrance to their apartment building. Jodie immediately straightened up and marched over to her with all the authority she could muster.

“Where the —” Jodie snapped, before catching herself, “— _heck_ have you been?”

“You’re a big girl Jo, just say fuck.” Mickey sounded bored, keeping her arms crossed and lips pursed tight. For a childish moment, Jodie wanted to say that this crappy attitude was why most people thought she was an asshole. 

But if she was being honest, Jodie envied her. Not the look of Mickey, the leather jacket and the purposefully-ripped jeans, but the iron in her eyes. Maybe the Brooklyn accent helped reinforce her general ‘don’t touch me or I’ll rip your hand off’ vibe, but Jodie didn’t know if she was always this way. Probably not; most kids aren’t born with the kind of steel Mickey had in her spine.

Even on her worst days in the system, Jodie didn’t know how to be anything other than pathetically soft. Maybe it was her nature, but mostly, it was just how she survived. She stuck to the shadows, kept her head down, avoiding attention of any kind. The less the world could see of her, the less the world could hurt her. But she sometimes imagined what it would be like to have Mickey’s persona. Unafraid to be as angry as she sometimes felt.

Instead of dwelling on that myriad of feelings, especially after days of not knowing if Mickey was alive or dead, Jodie just stated: “Mrs. Rita’s worried.” 

“She’s not,” Mickey snorted, “she misses the money I bring in.”

There was a twist of hurt in Jodie’s chest at the flippancy in her tone. Jodie knew that even though she’d given up on her other foster child, Mrs. Rita still liked Mickey a little bit better, no matter how awful Mickey was to her in return. It wasn’t because Mickey was white and Jodie was black. Mrs. Rita wasn’t racist, not really. It was practical, that’s all. Jodie, for all of her skills of slipping away unnoticed, would always get more attention than a sweet little white girl would.

Not that Mickey was looking very sweet, lately. Jodie suspected that was part of the reason Mrs. Rita gave up on calling her. Maybe, Jodie realized, that was Mickey’s plan all along.

“You’ll get reassigned soon,” Jodie warned, knowing the signs of a done foster parent about to give their kid back to the system.

“Good,” the blond girl said. “Anyway. I’m not here to stay. I’m crashing at Dylan’s for the week now that school is out.” 

Jodie swallowed another gulp of air to try and clear the rancid taste of bile from her mouth. “Then what are you here for?”

“To get the cash I’ve got stashed away, duh.” 

Mickey moved to walk into the apartment building, but Jodie grabbed her arm.

“What the fuck,” Jodie hissed, desperation and fury clawing at her throat in equal measures.

“There you go,” Mickey replied sarcastically, not even blinking as Jodie whispered incredulous words. 

“You can’t — you can’t keep a cut. You know what she’ll do if you—”

“It’s already done,” Mickey snapped, shaking her arm from Jodie’s grasp. “Because I’m not an idiot. This is what she does, Jodie. She makes kids steal for her—”

“She needs—”

“—and then turns them over, or turns them in, or whatever. If I’m gonna do that bitch’s dirty work before she hands me to the next asshole in line, I might as well benefit from the risks _we_ take.”

Jodie didn’t know what to say to that. A million thoughts rattled her brain, disbelief fighting to keep down the doubt that Mickey’s words were beginning to conjure. And as much as she hated it, some of those words rang true. 

But Jodie couldn’t stand to believe them. Not if Mrs. Rita was going to adopt her. 

Jodie stood on the stoop imploringly as Mickey turned back to her. At the sight, she seemed to soften, at least a little, before stepping down.

“You should do it too, Jo. Use that spot in the floor where you hide your letters. Save up, Jodie, because when this one is done with us, all we’ve got is ourselves. And when we turn eighteen? Shit.”

The reminder wasn’t necessary. Jodie had to push back the threat of tears at the very idea of being on her own once she turned legal.

“But Mrs. Rita told me today — just a few more jobs, Mickey, and we’ll be a family.”

“Did she say she was adopting us?” Mickey sounded like she knew the answer.

“No, but…”

Her foster sister smiled at her, and while it wasn’t a mean look, it definitely wasn’t kind. That doubtful little voice in the back of her head stirred at the sight.

“Jodie. Save the cuts. Seriously.” With that, Mickey stuffed her hands back in her jacket and turned around to head upstairs. “Text me if you need me. Y’know, for not-illegal stuff. You know where I live.”

 _Not with us_ , Jodie thought, watching her blond hair disappear from behind the gate. 

She didn’t like Mickey. She wasn’t a friend. But she was a constant in a sea of uncertainty, and Jodie had a feeling she was losing another anchor.

Turning around, Jodie breathed in deep, then made her way downtown.

* * *

If you were a thief in New York City, pick-pocketing wasn’t where it was at any more.

Well, it was if you were a foreigner. Apparently, there has been an uptick of crime rings from overseas that hit the city that summer, especially on the subways going downtown. Mrs. Rita had ranted to Jodie about it once, after she had a third shot of vodka, going on about how even illegal jobs were going to foreigners nowadays. It wasn’t a nice sentiment, but Jodie had heard similar rhetoric from drunk people in other foster homes, so she learned to keep her opinions to herself instead of opening that can of worms. 

Secretly, though, she thought it was a cool story to try and follow, though of course, she had no way of doing so when it was just intel gathered from larger crime rings in the city. She had a tendency for curiosity to get the better of her, but she wasn’t going to put her life in danger and try and track down sources, and she was only a kid. But when the New York Times had printed a story about it a month later, she childishly felt like they had beaten her to it. 

Anyway, if you wanted to get cash nowadays, you had to rob storefronts. Which wasn’t easy when the universe liked to treat black folks as guilty until proven innocent. New York, Harlem especially, didn’t hold onto that bullshit as hard, but every time a blue car rolled down the street, Jodie tried her best to disappear into the brickwork. It wasn’t breaking news that if Jodie was ever caught, she’d have a hell of a lot more to contend with than Mickey would.

So every time Jodie went out on another “mission” — let sketchy than “heist”, and it almost made her sound like a spy, or even an Avenger — she knew that priority number one was not getting caught. Everything else, even getting the cash, was second priority. 

“It’s not like I wouldn’t try to fix it, of course, but we’d be in a bind, you know?” Mrs. Rita had patiently explained in that honey-sweet voice. “I definitely wouldn’t have enough to make bail, for starters. And when you don’t put the blame on anyone else — which of course I know you wouldn’t, because you’re a sweet, smart, strong girl, and you’ve always understood what’s had to be done around here — then… well, kids in Juvie are wards of the state, right?”

Jodie had to make her peace with this early on in her stay: if she screwed up, she would be on her own. And that was the last place she could handle being.

So going unnoticed was the first step. That meant any high-quality places were out of the question. Definitely nothing with security guards or more than one camera. Two cameras she could make work, but one camera was the best. And that usually meant targeting corner shops or bodegas.

Mrs. Rita said that scoping out a place beforehand was the best way to guarantee a smooth robbery, so Jodie walked past this store a few times while meandering home from school, and had even popped in to buy a coke once or twice. But it didn’t make it any easier when Jodie actually met the owner. He was an older guy, with a pepper-grey beard and kind, brown eyes. Didn’t speak much English, but she knew from the photos on the wall behind him that he had a family. Either here or in Columbia, figuring from the flags that decorated the storefront. 

Just an honest guy trying to make a living.

He didn’t deserve this.

But he only had one camera.

The cherry bombs were easy to plant in his gutter. Its fuse was long enough that when she dropped a can and made to pick it up, she could drop the cherry bomb at the same time and start walking as casually as she could from into the far end of the store (”suspicious people run away from their target, not towards it”). She was two feet into the bodega when she heard the tell-tale sound of the cherry bomb going off near the pavement, cracking loudly enough to draw the storeowner’s attention. 

“ _¡Dios mio!_ ”, he shouted, jumping up from his chair, “ _Estos chicos, Juro por Dios—_ ”

He turned the bend, and Jodie started to work.

There was nobody else in the store at this time of day: early afternoon, people with nine to fives weren’t heading home yet. Jodie had accounted for that as best she could when she sat on a bench and watched for anyone coming or going from a block over. It was always a gamble, of course, but thank God this time it had paid off. She would’ve had to back up if anyone was lingering between the tall aisles.

She made a dash for the broom in the corner, hoodie pulled tight around her face, and then smacked the one camera on its flimsy hinge so that it faced the ceiling. Then, she went for the cash register.

The old man usually kept it unlocked, that was what made him such an obvious target. Jodie didn’t count, didn’t even really look as she grabbed two handfuls worth of cash and stuffed them in her pockets. By the time the store owner had come back, grumbling in Spanish, Jodie was already out the door.

She hadn’t noticed when she started crying. That happened sometimes on missions. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the fact that she was a _terrible fucking person_ who probably just ruined another person’s life, maybe it was because she was so scared she’d have a bullet in her head before she even knew a cop was behind her. All she knew for sure was that it couldn’t let it stop her. She had to keep walking, one hand clutched around the bills wadded in her pocket, the other holding on tight to her locket, and keep her head low. 

_Mrs. Rita said she needed this so we could be a family._

_Why does your family mean more than his?_

She was interrupted by her self-berating speel by the most terrifying sound she had ever heard. 

Someone was screaming.

Time stopped working right. Sirens started to match the screams, and faces dashed past her on the street, speaking in panicked tones. Some in Spanish, some in languages she didn’t recognize, but she knew what they must have been saying. They had to get inside, right now. There was a code for this kind of thing, a procedure put in place after the Battle of New York. Safety precautions: get indoors, get low. Stay in one place until the threat forces you to move. 

But Jodie wasn’t making to move towards any of the stores or apartments or even alleyways that could give her some protection. She just stood there, frozen, clutching stolen cash in her shaking hand.

There was a crash, loud enough to make her ears hurt, and Jodie’s hands flew up to cover them as she fell over from the force of the sound. She didn’t register the money in her hands blowing away with the debris in the wind. 

She had been scared on missions before, but it was nothing compared to this. All she could hear was the ringing from the crash and her heart pounding in her head.

 _Get inside_ , the reasonable part of her said.

 _Stay still_ , her body demanded.

There was another crash, a sharp one, like when you hit two trash can covers together really hard, but times a thousand. Stuff was floating in her face — dust? Smoke? — and she couldn’t see straight. She wanted to get up, she tried to get up, but her brain wasn’t connecting to the rest of her body. Distantly, she was aware that her jeans had ripped when she fell.

Something that might have been roar rang out all around her, and she didn’t know which way was up or which way was down. Everything was spinning, too fast, too much happening to understand. Everything eluded her - except something tall and big and heavy that was falling right towards her.

She had to move. She had to move, or she was going to die.

But instead, her body stayed frozen, and Jodie only just managed to close her eyes before she was crushed to death.

But she wasn’t crushed. She could feel the hitch of her breath and the trembling of her skin. Blood pumped vigorously from her heart to her head, louder than any sound she had experienced before, but she felt no pain.

Jodie opened her eyes and gasped.

Towering over her was the Hulk. Green and mighty and holding up a yards-long pole with one hand. Traffic lights swung at an angle on the end of it, like a locket on a chain. 

All the chaotic flurry stood still just for just a fraction in time as his gaze met hers.

 _His eyes are brown_ , came an unbidden thought, _like mine_.

Suddenly, time slid back into its regular pace, like a key into a lock, and Jodie didn’t know how to catch up, her heart still pounding in her ears as the giant dropped the pole to the side with a harmless thud. The pole that was just seconds away from crushing her.

Absently, she realized that the giant wasn’t just grunting, but actually speaking to her. A large, long finger pointed down to her side, and she crawled back on hands and feet without realizing she had told her body to do so. The Hulk stopped moving. Distantly, she was aware of alarms getting closer.

Alarms. 

The robbery. Suddenly, an entirely different fear gripped her, leaving her throat bone-dry.

There was a rumble from above. It might have been a question, but Jodie didn’t hear it. 

Jodie found that she could move again, so she did, scrambling to her feet. She ran, and she didn’t look back.

If she had, she might have seen a green giant holding something in his palm, staring down in it in wonder, before closing his eyes and his fists, and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the warm response! My goal is to update this once a week. Please let me know what you think as we continue! 
> 
> And yes, this is a "My God They Were Roommates (In Avengers Tower)" fic because! It's 2020 and I'm an advocate for self-care.

“Did you see the headline?”

“Did you know how much I hate that sentence?”

“Okay, fair enough,” conceded Tony, tablet in his hand, “But this isn’t ‘oh no mean green blew up an empty warehouse’ news, this is ‘Yay! Avenger Hulk!’ news.”

As he rubbed his eyes, Bruce Banner tried not to let his exhaustion with the topic show. Tony meant well, he knew. And Bruce was grateful. But he had avoided headlines about the other guy for the past five years for a reason.

“Dude, he woke up five minutes ago,” another voice remarked wryly, and the owner of it took a seat on a stool next to him. Rhodey gave Bruce a sympathetic wince in greeting, which Bruce returned. If anyone understood how unbearable Tony Stark could be, it was Rhodey. Well, him or Pepper, who was currently keeping quiet about the situation. Which… was unusual, now that Bruce thought about it. She was usually the first one to help Tony back off once Bruce came out of a “de-hulking”, as Clint so eloquently coined it.

“And that’s why I’m starting the day — morning? — mid-afternoon with good news!” Tony shook the tablet in his hand like a parent offering a child candy, grin wide. Bruce gave him as blisteringly dry a look as he could in return. Not that those usually did anything to deter him. Bruce sometimes had to remind himself that the complete lack of decorum was one of the reasons he liked spending time with Tony — that, and he was currently paying his rent at Avengers Tower.

“It’s very heartwarming. Buzzfeed is gonna eat this up like pie, trust me.”

A protest of _'could we not?'_ from Rhodey went ignored by Tony, who turned around to try and get Pepper’s attention as he put his coffee in to brew.

“Buzzfeed is still relevant, right? I don’t follow that stuff anymore. Pep? Sweetie, is Buzzfeed still relevant?”

“She’s CEO, not head of media,” Bruce retorted. This was to say that he had no idea Buzzfeed was a relevant thing in the first place.

Pepper kept silent, concentrating on her own pad. Usually, she would offer a retort of two at this point in the prating, but she didn’t say a peep. Something was different this morning. Bruce could tell, and Tony probably could, too. Thus the extra pushing and prodding of all parties. Tony didn’t want to be the center of attention, exactly, he just wanted people to be engaging with him. 

Bruce hadn’t voiced his theory to Pepper and Rhodey, the two leading authorities as anyone could be on Tony Stark, but this kind of needling wasn’t the same brand as what he dished out to the paparazzi or reporters. He was blase, and overt, and ridiculous, but where Tony looked for reactions from complete strangers, he sought out a back-and-forth from those whose opinions he cared about. He didn’t poke Bruce on the Helicarier when they first met because he wanted to be the instigator of a catastrophe, he had wanted to see what _Bruce_ would do. It was one of the subtle intricacies of dealing with Tony Stark — though calling that man any shade of ‘subtle’ was somewhat of an oxymoron, he had to admit.

But as much as he usually enjoyed the verbal spars, Bruce wasn’t really up for another match right now. The “Hulk Hangover” (a much more original term, copyright Natasha Romanoff) was hitting him harder than usual, and even though he nursed a freshly brewed black coffee, he was starting to wonder if he shouldn’t just go back to bed for a week. The symptoms he got after a transformation, after his atoms refitted themselves into his original shape and size, was always a grab bag of goodies. This week he was a lucky winner of a pounding headache and a nauseous stomach. At least he could manage the walk from his apartment to the commons kitchen this morning, even though every inch of his body was screaming for him to roll back over and go to sleep. 

“Are you bullying the old man?” From the doorway, Nat walked in donned in gray sweats and a messy bun. The shadows under her eyes were dark, and her hair was a mess, and Bruce was pleased to see it. She used to come to breakfast porcelain-doll perfect, but over time, her amour began to slip around her teammates. Not that she ever said as much. Just like Bruce never brought up the fact that he no longer grabbed the first cup of coffee he could and retreated at the first opening after a debrief. They weren’t… relaxing, exactly. Not even opening up. But they were unfolding a little bit around these people, this team. Bruce knew he didn’t really deserve any form of trust when it came to Natasha, not after the incident in the Helicarrier, but she had surprised him that day in New York. _We could use a little worse._

Now, she gave Bruce a sly grin as he threw his arms in the air in exaggerated offense, taking a seat at the counter nearby.

“I am _not_ the senior citizen of this tower!”

“When the senior citizen sleeps, you’re the honorary attendee,” she said while pointing at the toaster and making grabby hands at Tony.

“What am I, JARVIS?” Tony muttered, but he complied and put some bread in the toaster oven as Natasha and Bruce playfully continued.

“What happened to defending me?”

“You’ll survive.”

“So much for my knight in leather armor.” 

Natasha managed a light kick from the slumped-over angle in her chair, and Bruce practically glowed in delight. It was pathetic, he knew. But every time his teammates nagged him, physically or otherwise, all Bruce could see were people who no longer treated him as a ticking time bomb. Who, just maybe, weren’t afraid of him. 

“Can we please get back to what I was talking about?” Tony whined, taking out the toast like it was a Herculean effort. 

“If I had a shot every time he said that —”

“You’d have no liver,” Pepper quipped as she walked by Rhodey, squeezing his shoulder. “Trust me, be careful what you wish for.”

“Tony,” Bruce conceded, setting his coffee down, “can it at least wait until after the debrief? I can only handle so much stellar Hulk news at once.”

“See, when you say ‘stellar’, you mean it in that way dripping with sarcasm, but I mean ‘stellar’ in the actual textual meaning of the word. It’s _good news_ , Bruce, Jesus Christ.” Obviously frustrated in the lack of game-play from his opponent, he finally just slid his tablet across the counter towards Bruce. With a sigh, he decided to hurry up and swallow his lumps of Hulk-related news like a big boy.

He hadn’t expected the sight that greeted him.

“Holy shit,” said Rhodey from behind his shoulder. 

“Is she okay?” said Bruce, setting the tablet down on the table.

“Is she — my god, Banner, you see a picture of Big Green saving a girl’s life, and you ask if she’s _okay?_ ” Tony rolled his eyes as if what Bruce was asking was ridiculous instead of a perfectly valid concern. “We are all a glutton for punishment here, but seriously. Take the good news.”

Bruce wasn’t sure how to take it. There had been plenty of photos of his alternate self in the media in the past few months, but he was mostly represented as a green flash jumping or smashing its way through a chaotic scene. But this picture was… dynamic, sure, but not in the way he was used to seeing when it came to the other guy. 

The Hulk, holding a street lamp in one hand, the sun shining behind him. It had obviously been falling, and there was no mistaking from the posture that the Hulk had caught it. He stood there, towering over a black girl on the ground. She was in profile, but her gaping mouth was testament enough to the whirlwind of emotions on her face, even in profile.

“That’s… a crazy good picture, actually,” Natasha admitted, unceremoniously plucking the tablet from Bruce’s hands. “Who even got that angle?”

“Some kid intern, apparently. From the Bugle, can you believe that? He was literally just at the right place at the right time.” There was a thoughtful look on Tony’s face, and on another occasion, Bruce would be worried about him doing something absurdly stupid, but right now, all he could manage was to sit frozen in his seat.

“What about that slanderous news site?” Steve and Clint had made their way into the kitchen at some point and were crowded around the kitchen island.

 _‘They got a picture of Bruce,’_ signed Natasha.

 _‘Fucking fuck,’_ signed Clint.

“It’s not bad, for God’s sake,” Tony yelled and exasperatedly signed at the exact same time. 

“Anything involving the Bugle is automatically shitty news,” Clint retorted, obviously still sore about that article from a month ago that called him a circus freak, and rightfully so. 

Rhodey grabbed the tablet from Nat and passed it over. “Not this time.”

Before either Steve or Clint could get a word in, a booming voice came thundering down the hallway.

“Banner! Have you seen the good news?” Thor said brightly, waving his smartphone. 

Bruce groaned and put his head in his hands. 

“I get that you’re a contradiction in terms, or whatever, but there’s nothing to be groaning about,” Tony poked his arm with a fork. “You saved a girl’s life! And a lot more people in Harlem, too, if the debrief notes aren’t lying.”

“But is she okay? Has anyone checked up on her?” Bruce said with anxiety laced in his tone.

“Actually,” said Pepper, sitting over on the couch, “She technically works for us.”

The room fell silent. 

Clint made an impatient gesture. After Nat translated for him, Clint joined the party of mouths gaping open like a fish. 

“Works for —” Rhodey started.

“She’s a student intern for the PR sector. Just accepted the offer two days ago, actually.” Pepper swiped through her tablet. “I don’t keep track of the interns, obviously, but Price showed me the line-up of final candidates last week. I recognized her face.”

Nobody had anything to say to that. Except, of course, for Tony.

“That’s nuts. That’s some serendipity-universe-colliding-contrived-bullshit. That’s… absolutely fucking insane! Babe, why didn’t you tell me?”

“So I could watch you lose your mind like you’re doing right now,” Pepper said with a sweet smile, and Steve let out a very undignified snort.

“Congrats! It’s working! Now fill us in, please?”

“That’s all I know, seriously,” Pepper said in her placating tone when a blurred memory started to sharpen in Bruce’s mind. A very vague image of a girl staring up at him, terror etched in her features, and it threatened to upturn Bruce’s stomach. But there was something else there, too. He — the other guy picking something off the ground. Pretty and probably breakable, as most things were to the Hulk. It was probably a lost cause; if the other guy had handled it, it was nothing more than dust now.

“Wait,” said Thor, as if on cue, pulling a small golden heart from his pocket, danging it from a threadlike chain as everyone stared at it with various degrees of awe. “Did this belong to the young lady?”

Bruce wished he could think of another word to describe his state of being other than gobsmacked. “Where —”

“Your valiant other half was holding it when you transformed back,” Thor explained with a casual shrug. “I thought he just found it as a spoil of war, but if it has an owner, I’m glad she was found.”

Bruce was saved by coming up with literally anything to say by Steve’s watch going off, signaling the end of morning festivities.

“Okay, um. Fuck,” said Steve eloquently. “Time for debrief.”

A line of exhausted faces made their way over to the conference room, but Bruce didn’t get up. Gripping the tablet in one hand and cradling the half-locket in the other, he stared at that profile and a sick sense of dread swept over him.

Proximity to him was always a bad idea. This was a giant tower, and their paths would probably never cross, but still, a voice that sounded way too familiar echoed in his mind:

_You contaminate everything you touch._

“Hey.” A gentle voice broke him from his stupor, and when he looked up, Pepper was giving him a patient look. “She really is okay, Bruce. She called in for her follow-up this morning, and she sounded fine. Excited, even.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he replied, managing a small, grateful smile. “Thanks, Pepper. I’m right behind you.”

He cast one last look towards the photo, then tucked the girl’s locket as carefully as he could into his shirt pocket before following the rest of the team to the debrief.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all of your comments! I reread every one of them multiple times and are a huge motivator. Thanks for your patience as I push this chapter out, and hopefully the next one soon thereafter. This is hopefully the last of the exposition and we can get into more relationship building right after!

Outside of Avengers Tower, Jodie stood waiting to be buzzed in.

She smoothed her skirt for the fifth time in the past minute, inspecting for wrinkles in the mid-morning sun. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but she thought it was a pretty shade of magenta. She usually didn’t go for bright colors, but when she spotted it on the clearance rack at Target, Jodie decided she was feeling brave. 

Courage should’ve been the furthest thing from her mind. Hell, thanks to her cowardice she froze up on the spot and almost got killed for it. But when she ran home - _and away from the person who saved my life_ , a part of her scolded herself - she burst through the door still shaking a mile a minute. Like the ground struggling to settle in the aftermath of a tremor, Jodie’s body raged with adrenaline, leaving her in a heightened concoction of terror and shock and awe.

And she stood in Mrs. Rita’s kitchen, shaking and spotted with debris, she told her foster mother about the Stark Internship. What had seemed so hard to delicately navigate just an hour ago, Jodie put plainly on the table. She had got the internship, and she wanted to go. Maybe almost getting crushed had kicked her sense of propriety right out the window. Maybe the chemistry in her brain was _really_ fucked up. But Mrs. Rita had just stared at her for a minute, too stunned to speak, until she finally nodded.

She took her to Target the next day, even though she looked down all the aisles in a way that suggested she was above being here. She didn’t say anything, but she frowned and _tsk_ ed as she browsed, and Jodie tried her best not to look at anyone else around her, fiercely aware that this wasn’t an appropriate performance to be having in a Target, of all places. Mrs. Rita liked talking about Fifth Avenue and “real” places to shop, and had even promised to take Jodie window-shopping one day. Jodie didn’t exactly light up at the prospect. She wasn’t the smartest kid, but she knew when she didn’t belong somewhere.

Like now, wearing clearance rack work clothes for her first day at Avengers Tower, clutching a black plastic bag with her few earthly possessions inside. Mrs. Rita didn’t drop her off, and that was fine. She wasn’t a baby. But as strangers passed her by, she knew that she didn’t quite measure up to anyone who flew through those glass doors. Jodie kept the trash bag at her feet and tried her best to hide it behind her legs from the passersby, acutely aware of how ridiculous she must look, though none of them looked up from their phones. There were too many of them to count at this time of day, a stampede of stilettos and dress shoes, three-piece and pantsuits, and everything that screamed corporate America. “Impossible marks,” Mrs. Rita had called them the night before.

_“Don’t try and take anything from the Tower,” Mrs. Rita stated matter-of-factly as she helped Jodie into her new blazer. It was a little too big on her, and Mrs. Rita had to use some safety pins in the back so that she didn’t look like she was drowning in it. Jodie was paying such close attention to her reflection that she almost missed the casual statement._

_Terror seized in her throat. "I wouldn’t —”_

_“I know, sweetie, you’re too smart for that.” Mrs. Rita pulled the tail of the blazer as flat as she could manage, not looking up from her work. “I’m just saying, you’ll have to find your marks elsewhere. On the weekends, of course; you wouldn’t want to skip work and make a bad impression.”_

_Jodie hadn’t even considered the possibility that Mrs. Rita would want her to do missions while living in the Avengers Tower. For God’s sake, they were literally called_ the Avengers _. Her palms began to sweat at the mere mention of trying to steal something from under their noses. But before she could protest, Mrs. Rita looked at her in the mirror and said,_

_“We need to make up for that bundled incident, after all.” There wasn’t a single threatening note in her voice, but still, Jodie swallowed. Because it wasn’t a question, and it didn’t broker an argument._

_Mrs. Rita smiled brightly. “It’s fine! Once the summer is over, I’m sure we’ll have enough to… move on.”_

_Jodie noticed that the ‘f-word’ was once-again absent from her vocabulary, but she did her best to assume it didn’t mean anything._

_Mrs. Rita stood up straight, then put her hands on either side of Jodie’s arms and looked at her in the mirror. “There, don’t you look like a modern woman?” She squeezed her arms in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture, but Jodie’s throat felt dry, and a small voice in the back of her mind wondered what Mrs. Rita would do if Jodie tried to get out of her grip._

There was a loud noise, like an intercom buzz, and Jodie turned to see a security guard waving her in. 

She reached for her neck before remembering, for the hundredth time that week, that the locket was gone. The thought still tempted her to tear up, feeling its absence like a bolder, but right now she refused. She wasn't going to cry over her past. Today was about her future.

Standing up as straight as she could, she pushed the unsavory thoughts to the corner of her mind and put on her best smile as she walked through the doors of Avengers Tower.

* * *

Today wasn’t her first day of work. It was “orientation” and “move-in" day. As such, her first day wasn’t so much a structured day as it was a whirlwind of policy reviews, training videos, and filling out forms. 

A man at the front at taken her “luggage” — Jodie found herself grateful that none of the other interns could see her hand it over to a man whose suit probably cost more than anything that was in that bag — and he told her that it would be waiting in her room when she was done. Before it could sink in that she was actually, for real, gonna have a room in Avenger’s Tower, she was whisked away by another official-looking lady and into one of many conference rooms she’d see that day. 

Jodie caught a glance at who she thought must be other interns as she was escorted to and fro in the hallways, but over the course of the day she'd spotted a least twenty, maybe thirty, so she doubted that they were all interning at the PR department with her. All the training videos were basic corporate policy spiels, and if Jodie decided to have a career in PR, she didn’t think it was a good sign that she mentally drifted off during talks about what did and did not constitute an appropriate gift to accept from a client. Still, Jodie kept quiet, took notes for stuff that looked important, and did her best to at least look busy. 

She was given welcome packets and lunch and directions in those sleek but relatively normal-looking conference rooms, so she was left completely unprepared when she was directed across a glass bridge that was a least a story or two up. It wasn’t until she was out in the open on the bridge itself that it struck her how fancy this place was. Through the clear glass, she could spot rows and rows of offices, their occupants tiny in the distance as they made their way around the maze below, and she was reminded of a model of worker ants she saw on a 3rd-grade field trip to the Museum of Natural History.

She didn’t have a lot of time to gawk, though, before she was herded to the landing with the other kids. A few of them were talking, probably having bonded during the day, and Jodie immediately felt shy. She wasn’t the best at starting a conversation with kids her own age who _didn’t_ wear Ray Bands, so she kept her eyes on the floor.

Jodie barely noticed that her group was growing smaller and smaller when suddenly, she was given a card with a letter and a number, along with a code. “Just enter the number when you’re in the elevator, then swipe your card. It will automatically bring you to your apartment.”

“My wha —” 

But the lady was giving her a big, impatient smile and walking away before Jodie realized exactly what she had said.

She had said _apartment_.

And that was exactly what greeted her when she opened the door.

It was… nice. She was vaguely aware that the adjective was underselling it, but she was too shell-struck to find the right word. As she stepped past the doorway, the living room instantly lit up, revealing a widescreen in the center with sofas that lined the edges. The walls were sleek and clean and, thankfully, not see-through, but everything looked so angular and bare. _Contemporary_ , Mrs. Rita would’ve called it with a wistful sigh as they watched some mindless show about absurdly wealthy people on the television at night.

“Hello?” Jodie called out quietly, stepping further inside because there was no way this whole thing was just for her. Internships, even Stark-funded ones, couldn’t have this perk… could it?

“Hello,” a voice replied — not from another room, but from above her, and Jodie shrieked and almost tripped over herself in her thrift-store heels.

“Apologizes,” the voice said calmly, “I didn’t mean to startle you. There’s no reason to be frightened. I am JARVIS, the Tower’s Interface.”

Catching her breath, she processed what the voice had said. JARVIS — yes, Jodie had read about it — him? Jodie hadn’t known what to expect from the few articles she could find about the interface, but the voice sounded male and British. But its voice wasn’t stale or dispassionately friendly, which was what Jodie expected from an A.I. He was definitely polite, but underneath that, she thought he might have something like… a tone? 

When Jodie sat down on the couch, her surprise was worn off and a million questions were beginning to fill her head. But she stamped them all down, as she should. She wasn’t going to be rude and annoy him with them. _(Could A.I.s even get annoyed?)_

“Um. Hi, sir.” 

“No need for sirs, I am a genderless artificial intelligence system,” he quipped. 

“Oh,” Jodie said lamely.

“And I have no interest in overthrowing humanity and wreaking havoc if that’s what you're worried about,” and now Jodie was sure that this A.I. had a tone because she could recognize sarcasm anywhere. She let out a breathless, dumbfound laugh at the sound of it.

“Okay. Mr. JARVIS. I’m Jodie,” she said to the air because, if the A.I. had a personality, it was only fair that she be polite. 

“A pleasure, Miss Jodie,” was the cordial response. “If there’s anything you need assistance with or any questions that you may have, please don’t hesitate.”

He - it? They - said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jodie didn’t even know what direction she was supposed to be looking when she was talking to him.

“Right. Um. Is there anyone else rooming with me, Mr. JARVIS?” said asked tentatively, head still pointed at the ceiling. 

“All interns are assigned their own housing, Miss Jodie. And you don’t have to keep craning your neck. My voice doesn’t indicate my physical presence, and I can change it to any source with sound output,” and suddenly, his voice came from the television, as if to make a point — “See?"

“Okay. So, you can see me?” This didn’t exactly set Jodie at ease. She knew there would be security, but not to the point where it felt this… omniscient. 

“Yes, via that camera in the right corner,” he said, and Jodie turned around to spot it above the door. “It’s rudimentary, but internships don’t have the largest housing budget.”

Sure it doesn’t, Jodie thought with a scoff as she examined the TV that could probably pay off her future college loans.

“If it’s privacy you’re worried about, I am only located in this room for security measures. No human being is monitoring this room, it’s only me. And you can manually turn me off any time you like, from this —” a panel on the side of the screen slid open, revealing a set of buttons “— or by simply telling me to shut down. Your bedroom, kitchen quarters, and bathing unit has no security or footage, in the traditional sense.”

Right. The bedroom. More lights automatically turned on as she walked into the hallway, which gave it a more haunted look than anything sleek and cool, which she assumed Mr. Stark was going for. She made a turn to the right, and… holy shit, she had a bedroom. And it was all _hers_. 

She slept in a bed before, of course — she wasn’t that pathetic — but usually with someone else, sometimes more when she was small. Most associations she had were of random kicks in the middle of the night and another kid hogging the covers. She never cared when she got to a new foster home and was told she had to share a room - because that's how it's always been for her - but instead relished the few chances to have a bed of her own, even in the bed was no bigger than a twin.

So when faced with perfectly white sheets and a mattress expanse that could consume three of her, she gingerly pressed a hand onto the corner, as if it was a mirage in the desert. But when her palms touched the silky-soft fabric, all reluctance disappeared, and she screeched as she flopped unceremoniously onto the bed that was already threatening to swallow her giggling form down into its cloudy abyss.

“You alright in there, Miss Jodie?” 

Embarrassment battled her giddy excitement as she sat up in the bed and choked down her giggles. “Yeah, I’m okay!” 

At the realization that she was speaking to a Stark-engineered A.I. in a ridiculously expensive king-sized bed, Jodie felt another fit of giggles coming on. Of all the places she expected to be, this was not it. 

But with this new space, there was a new routine she had to figure out. No longer did she have to mentally calculate how much food she could afford to take from the cabinets, but instead found them fully stocked and at no risk of running dry even if Jodie lived here a year instead of a summer. Instead of writing out her notes from her phone to a notebook, or racing to the library to use a computer, Mr. JARVIS came fully equipped with holographic monitors in the main room for her could type on. Its monochrome glow was intimidating, as if it was daring Jodie to try and break a hologram, but after a few dry jokes from Mr. JARVIS about the extensive tests Mr. Stark put his machinery through, Jodie got comfortable enough to start working on a makeshift draft. And Mr. JARVIS, it turned out, was a lot more effective - and less unintelligible - than Alexa or Siri when she wanted to look up information.

And when she asked Mr. JARVIS to shut down - in her apartment, at least, and she was under no illusions that the A.I. was ever completely turned off, but she was too tired to examine the way she felt about that - she grabbed her trash bag and unceremoniously dumped its few contents out onto the bed, before stuffing the black bag as far into the corner of her closet as she could, then closed the door on that half for good measure. It was just a trash bag, but looking at it again after typing on thousands of dollars worth of equipment made her feel like a scared kid trying to keep the bogeyman at bay. Out of sight, out of mind; that sometimes worked best. 

As Jodie crawled into bed and turned off the light, her giddiness finally wore off and the silence started to seep in. This was new, and Jodie didn’t know how to react to it. At home, even when Mickey or Mrs. Rita was absent, there was no shortage of city ambiance bleeding through the windows; distant honks and car alarms, mumbled shouts in unintelligible languages, a siren of music moving down the road. But here, everything outside was effectively muted, untouchable. Isolating.

It got worse as the night wore on. The silence was deafening. She tossed and turned for who knew how long, grunting in frustration. This was stupid — there was no such thing as being too comfortable. And yet, that was the problem. Jodie wasn’t sleeping on the floor before she came here, she had nothing to complain about. But this bed was… like sleeping on literal feathers. Like snow, even. Buoyant and unsteady. Like she could fall through at any second. 

A shot of chagrin ran through her, and she immediately berated herself. Honestly, who complained about their bed being _too nice?_

Refusing to look at the clock on her nightstand, she turned on the light and put her sweats on. She used to have this problem when she was younger, but she thought she got over it when high school started. But she remembered that walking a bit sometimes helped, even if it was just up and down the hall, pretending to be a spy so that her footsteps stayed light and undisturbed.

She definitely had a lot more room for pacing in this apartment, but that wasn’t helping her as it used too. Everything she was looking at was too new and not reassuring enough to lull her back into a temporary state of security. She was sure at least a few hours had passed before she fell down on the couch in a huff, still not the least bit tired. 

Out of sheer boredom, she decided to walk to the panel that activated Mr. JARVIS. Pressing the button didn’t seem to do anything. She pressed it again. Nothing. A few more quick pushes, then Jodie dramatically threw herself back onto the couch.

“Is there anything I can help with, Miss Jodie?”

If she wasn’t awake before, she definitely was after bolting up straight in her seat at the surrounding voice. “You scared the — that scared me!”

“I’m sorry,” was the reply, and the funny thing was, he actually did sound sorry. Sarcasm was one thing, but Jodie didn’t know A.I.s could have inflections of human tone, but the humanity in it helped calm her down enough to learn back in the chair. “You turned me on and off several times.”

“Oh,” said Jodie, feeling her cheeks burn. “Um. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. You seem… restless.”

“Yeah. That’s what it feels like, yeah.”

“Would you like me to wake anyone? Do you need someone to talk to?”

Jodie giggled, a pop of insanity on the tail end of exhaustion. Who could she talk to in the Avengers Tower?

“Well,” Jodie started, head lolling to one side on the back of the cushion, “I’d like to talk to Mr. Banner eventually, but I don’t think he’s up for a conversation right now.”

She expected some kind of chuckle or even laugh from the A.I. now, to recognize the joke for what it was. But instead, only silence answered. It suddenly felt disconcerting, being all alone again.

“Mr. JARVIS?” Jodie whispered, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.

“Forgive me,” said JARVIS, “It’s just that - well, Doctor Banner is awake.”

She stared dumbfounded at the ceiling.

“And I do have the protocols to his laboratory. If you would like to meet him.” 

There were a million and ten reasons why that was a horrible idea. Jodie would’ve thought that a super-genius A.I. would know better. Maybe there was a shot in his circuitry? If that was even how he worked. Maybe not. Probably not.

“That’s… a bad idea?” Jodie didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but her mouth struggled to keep up with the pace of her mind. She knew better. Didn’t she know better?

“Not necessarily,” JARVIS countered, taking her easy out away from her. “This is the time of night he’s most productive, and he would appreciate the break.”

“He’ll be mad,” Jodie said, and a blurry image of roaring green came to mind.

“No, he won’t.” The A.I. didn’t offer anything more than that. 

Biting her lip, Jodie told herself to get undressed and go back to bed. To get ready for a long day tomorrow. There were so many reasons she shouldn’t be considering this.

_But he saved my life. You owe him your thanks. Didn’t that beat out every reason?_

It had nothing to do with her curiosity. Nothing at all. She just wanted to say thank you. And who knows? Maybe her letter hadn’t arrived here yet. 

“If he’s mad,” Jodie pointed to the ceiling, “I’m blaming you.”

“Of course,” Mr JARVIS replied, with what she was sure was barely veiled amusement. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally these two get to meet! I'm starting to get into the thick of it, and as such, I'm getting a bit nervous. But your comments help a lot, and I really do treasure every one of them. Let me know how I'm going, and thanks again for reading!

When the elevator door slid open, Jodie found herself in a lab. Which was probably a good sign, since Bruce Banner was a doctor, after all. A single line shone down on where she stood in the elevator bay, but beyond that, everything around her seemed to be shut down. There was a low hum, much quieter than the radiator back in her old room, but still present enough to indicate that something was powered on, despite the quiet look to the place. Sure enough, although the lights were dimmed around her, when she dared to take a few steps around the corner, a fluorescent glow beckoned her from a few corridors down.

She started walking before she could stop herself. As she stepped as softly as she could, Jodie passed what she was sure was super expensive equipment. Some stuff she could recognize, like basic flasks and beakers, but most were foreign her. As she took quick looks at sleek-looking interactive surfaces — probably the highest of tech, because, well, Tony Stark — she got that same feeling that she did when she walked into the Tower for the first time: that no matter how she tried, she'd never belong anywhere near here. 

Her gut reaction was to ask Mr. JARVIS to bring her back to her apartment. Remembering why she came here in the first place, the icy uncertainty in her chest grew colder, threatening to freeze her to the spot. She wasn’t nervous because of who she was seeking out, but because of the sharp contrast of, well, _her_ , to everything else around her. A teenage girl in ratty sweats walking down rows and rows of irreplaceable technology. It couldn’t be more obvious that she was intruding. _Funny thing for a dirty thief to suddenly get antsy about_ , her mind helpfully supplied. 

She suddenly clasped her hands in front of her, as if afraid she’d break something just by thinking about it. 

At the loss for what else to do, she urged herself to keep walking. But she hadn’t realized how big this place was when she’s started, and not a soul was in sight. Maybe she should turn back and forget about finding him. Maybe cameras were watching right now and security thought she was stealing something just by virtue of her being in his room where she obviously didn’t belong and maybe she blew this whole opportunity by being a thoughtless idiot who knew better than to —

But there in the corner, typing away at a holographic projection, was somebody. It was impossible to tell by the back of his head if this was the right guy, but his dark, wavy curls were kind of familiar, at least.

 _He’ll be mad at you_ , she warned herself, and she forgot what being “mad” might mean in the context of this man. The anger of any adult figure was enough to set her back on her heels. 

But before she could snap out of it and make a hasty retreat, the man turned around in his chair.

“Shit —” he yelped, grabbing the desk behind him with one hand, the other clasping over his heart. The man took another look at her, then seemed to backtrack, with what she thought might be an embarrassed look. “I mean, uh. Darn.”

Despite the mortification that washed over her, Jodie stifled the strange urge to laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the JARVIS — I mean, Mr. JARVIS said I wouldn’t be bothering — I wasn’t steal — I mean I didn’t mean to —” she rambled, feeling more and more like an idiot with every word that left her mouth.

“Hey, hey,” said the man, putting his arms out in front of him in a placating gesture. “It’s okay. It’s fine, really.”

Once she shut up, he let his hands fall to his legs. He didn’t make a move to scold, or berate, or throw her out. Foster parents did that, sometimes, when she got too annoying with her curiosity and poked her head where it didn’t belong. Yet, here she was, doing it again. _What’s the definition of insanity, again?_

But despite the scare she had obviously given him, the man really… didn’t look angry. He was smiling, but only a little bit. It was an angled-smile that was too crooked to be fake but too self-conscious to be without shadow. She had seen that smile on other faces before — not a lot, just a few — and she had never really figured out what it meant. She always took it as a challenge, the kind that made her do stupid stuff — like intrude onto an Avengers property without permission. 

_‘You oxymoron,’_ a face with hazel eyes and auburn hair once told her. Jodie didn’t remember a lot about that foster family, but she remembered that phrase, having no idea what it meant at the time. She also remembered thinking that maybe this family would work out, so what she thought back then didn’t matter anyway. 

So, Jodie Smith, the oxymoron. The kid who never wanted anyone to see her, but desperately wanted to see everyone else. 

Jodie Smith, the oxymoronic idiot, who cried while stealing from a cash register but didn’t even blink while looking at the man who was supposed to be a monster.

But Jodie hadn’t realized until this moment that she had had a very vivid image in her mind of who the Hulk was going to be. And the weird part wasn’t that he didn’t match up — it was that he _did_. 

Not physically, not at a first glance. An older man in a lab coat with no evident muscles pressing against his clothes was probably not what most people expected when they thought of the Hulk. Maybe this guy was supposed to have a really short fuse, or throw chairs across the room when somebody didn’t listen to him. But instead, when a random girl waltzed into his private space, he reassured her. And she couldn’t help but remember a green giant holding up a lamppost and asking her — 

“Are you okay?”

An exhale escaped her chest louder than she meant it to. Because that was the thing: she could see him in his eyebrows and the wrinkles around his eyes, which were crisp and outlined in her heightened state of panic the day he saved her. And the Hulk’s eyes weren’t green like reporters always said they were: they were a deep and rich brown, same as this man’s. And as he spoke those words, they mirrored the same depth of concern the Hulk’s had when they looked at her. Concern that seemed to grow the longer she stood gaping at him, judging by the growing frown on his face.

“You sound so much like him,” she muttered in a half-daze.

At Mr. Banner’s stunned expression, she finally estimated the size of the foot in her mouth and snapped out of it. “Yeah — I mean — sorry,” Jodie stammered, holding her hands in front of her, thumbing the underside of her palm in an erratic rhythm. “I didn’t mean to insult you or anything, sir, I only meant, um. The Hulk. _You_ , I mean, I think you asked me that. Before. When you saved me.”

Mr. Banner blinked, not looking any less worried.

“The Hulk did. He asked me if I was okay. And I am!” she said with a smile, hoping it didn’t come off as too crazed. “I’m okay. And I… am… also totally wasting your time, I’m so sorry, sir, I’m—”

“Okay, whew, slow down a minute, yeah?” Thankfully, that crooked grin was back on his face, which Jodie took as a good sign. Not that she trusted her ability to read the room at this point, but for some reason that smile instantly put her more at ease, and she could feel herself relaxing into a more genuine grin in return. 

“So,” the man started, taking off his glasses to rub them on the edge of his plaid shirt before putting them back on, “You’re the young lady that I’m sharing the limelight with?”

“Uh,” was her astute response.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, gracefully changing the subject back to where it was originally supposed to go, “Sorry that… the other guy trashed your neighborhood. Again. We’re working on reparations and repairs, I swear. I’m not gonna disappear and let you guys deal with all the damage like last time.”

‘Last time’, Jodie woke up the next morning and watched the news about two giant monsters destroying a street and a few apartment roofs a few subway stops down. First superhero fight in New York City, and Jodie slept right through it. She hated sleeping through big events, even though she reasonably knew that the only way she could report a story was from a Twitter account, and she hardly had the numbers for anyone to pay attention. But before she could even draft her theories, her foster parents dropped her and her trash bag off at the CPS before getting the hell out of town. Jodie told herself that it was only the rational thing they could do in the face of such insanity — even though she couldn’t relate to the impulse to run. 

Even so, it seemed very strange for him to apologize to her. Strange, and wholly unnecessary. The principal of the thing didn’t sit right with her. And maybe it was because she was sleep-deprived, but at the moment, Jodie couldn’t tamper the urge to push back against it. 

“I’m not worried about — I mean, I didn’t come here to — you saved my life, you get that, right?” Jodie almost sounded irked as she pointed that out, and it obviously took Mr. Banner aback as he sat up a bit straighter in his chair, and shit, now it sounded like she was accusing him of something. But she didn’t understand. Why should he be sorry, exactly? Sure, she didn’t own a business or a home, and she knew the effects of an attack were devastating financially — that family after the battle of Harlem was not the last one to turn her over when the retail market in the neighborhood plummeted — but if she had to choose between her apartment and her life, she knew what she would choose.

“I’m… sorry?” he said, and Jodie was starting to feel that there were too many sorries going around.

“Thank you. I meant to say, thank you. For saving my life. That’s why I came,” she finally managed to say like a half-sane person. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as the words kept coming out, completely unbidden and unwelcome, “I mean I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to bother you, I was just — Mr. JARVIS told me you might —”

“Just JARVIS,” the disembodied voiced corrected from above, and Jodie started at the voice yet again. That would have to take some getting used to, apparently.

“You have access to JARVIS?” Mr. Banner raised his eyebrows, then peered at his phone almost accusingly. “Tony…”

“Am I not… supposed to?” Jodie asked nervously.

Mr. Banner sighed then leaned back a bit farther in his chair. “It’s fine. Just gotta have a talk with the… administration.”

“He’s been really nice,” Jodie stated in JARVIS’ defense, and Mr. Banner’s laughter lines crinkled a bit when he smiled this time.

“Yeah, I like him too.”

“You’re both too kind,” the deadpan voice wafted through the air.

“Someone’s gotta even out Stark’s abuse,” Mr. Banner quipped as he typed something out on his phone.

“My hero,” JARVIS said dryly. 

“Anyway,” said Dr. Banner, putting his phone on the table, “I apologize for being absolutely awful at introductions. Wanna invent time travel, go back and try that again?”

Jodie let out a coarse laugh. At some point, she noticed, she had stopped fiddling and her hands were back at her sides.

“Okay,” she conceded, then professionally cleared her throat before sticking out her hand like she was a white man in a three-piece suit. “I’m Jodie. Thanks for saving my life the other day.”

“Hi, I’m Bruce. I am glad that you are alive so I can properly meet you.”

“Oh, you really weren’t lying about being bad at this, huh?” teased Jodie as gently as she could, as if dropping a pebble to test the waters.

“Miserable at it. It’s my defining trait.”

Both of them burst into laughter, and if it was a tad hysterical on Jodie’s part — all the awkwardness and tension popping in the air like a balloon — she tried not to dwell on it. 

Jodie hadn’t known what to expect coming down here, but this was nicer than she thought it would be. Later, she would probably realize every single way this could have ended very, very badly, but for now, she was glad she had done it. Adults usually didn’t… like Jodie. She was too loud, too grating, too annoying with her questions and how blunt she could be. She was a deterrent; the harder she held on to people, the more they tended to slip away. Silence was a trait she had to learn quick after housing with Mrs. Rita, and she thought she was getting the hang of it. Maybe that was why Mr. Banner wasn’t immediately ushering her away. 

“So,” started Mr. Banner, “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

“No. I mean, yeah.”

“First day jitters?”

“No, ‘s not that,” though it would have been an easy enough excuse. Instead, to her utter mortification, she heard herself say: “Bed’s too soft.”

But instead of scoffing at such a selfish thought or calling being ungrateful, Mr. Banner’s eyes got wider, and then contemplative. He considered this for a moment, then leaned towards her conspiratorially.

“I have the same problem,” he whispered. “It feels like a cloud, it’s not natural at all.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Jodie readily agreed, before clasping a hand over her mouth and whispering, “Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Mr. Banner crossed his heart with his finger, and as Jodie watched him, the depth of his statement finally sunk in. She didn’t say anything for a minute, just… looked at him. He was obviously a scientist, with the glasses and the lab coat… but he, too, stood in contrast to all the sleek, expensive machinery that surrounded him. The edge of one of his glasses was cracked, just a bit, and he only wore a plaid shirt and jeans under his plain lab coat. 

In fact, for the first time, Jodie clocked that this laboratory wasn’t his space, either. He crossed his arms and folded in on himself, not leaning on the counter or all the way back in his chair. There were no coffee stains on the table; his workspace was immaculate, actually, which she thought must be unusual for geniuses who work in the middle of the night. As if he didn’t want to leave a mark — just in case he didn’t stay. 

That was familiar enough to give her an idea.

“You’re an Avenger, why would you know?” she asked, not unkindly, watching closely for a response.

Mr. Banner shrugged his shoulders, but a look of bitter bemusement in his eyes gave him away, and before she could stop herself, Jodie blurted out:

“You’re an orphan, too?”

For the first time since they started their conversation, Mr. Banner seemed genuinely taken aback instead of just momentarily surprised. Silence hung in the air between them. But Jodie didn’t backtrack or redact her statement or even rephrase it into something that would objectively make more sense. 

Because she had that itch again, the itch that got adults angry at her and always got her into trouble. That itch that led to nothing but lost families when she really dug her heels in. But it was also the itch that made her ask anyway, because it only came from questions that she thought really mattered. 

And this really mattered. Jodie was right, she could tell by the way he seemed to freeze up at the question, then straighten his shoulders with the contemplation of it. Because he somehow knew that it mattered, too. 

She cast a lifeline and didn't even realize how desperately she needed it to land until she threw it. It could lead to something that Jodie had been yearning for, and for a very long time: a connection.

The other man shifted in his seat, and Jodie could tell when he leaned back, unfolding from his previously rigid stance, that he had decided something.

“I suppose I am.”

It was like a firecracker to her system, and she barely kept herself from saying: _I knew it_.

He didn’t say anything else right away. She knew that he was probably studying her, but it didn’t feel piercing or suspicious, like the attention she usually garnered from adults. Instead, his interest landed on her gently. 

“You’re good at reading people, aren’t you?” He didn’t say it accusingly. In fact, she might be able to suss out admiration in his gruff tone.

“I dunno,” she said, feeling comfortable enough to sit back against a table, “I think I notice things, though. I write stuff, too,” she said, then tried not to kick herself for how stupid that sounded. “I think I must be okay since I got in. Here, I mean.”

Mr. Banner nodded, and he was even smiling a little bit. This wasn’t the reaction she usually got when she went around guessing at people. 

“Speaking of,” he started, picking up some kind of fancy pencil from his desk, “I appreciate the thanks, I really do, but you should try to get some sleep. Try the couch, most of them don’t feel like you’re at risk of disappearing into their folds,” he said dryly.

Jodie let out a laugh before nodding. “Yeah, that. That’s a good idea.” But she didn’t make her way right out the door like she probably should have. Instead, she lingered, biting her lip. She had said what she came here to say, but still… she had so many more questions. She wanted to know what it was like for him, being an orphan. She wanted to dig deeper into that connection, give it roots, and see what grew from it. And, yeah, the girl who had been tracking the news for the past few years wanted to know about the Hulk, too. She wanted to understand why everyone thought he and Mr. Banner were completely different beings when they so obviously had the exact same eyes. 

Her silence must have spoken volumes because Mr. Banner chuckled like someone who was in on the joke.

“How about this,” he started, “You go try and get some sleep and start your internship, and if you want to keep interviewing me —” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be invasive or… exploitative or —” she stammered, anxiety spiking before Mr. Banner lazily waved a hand in the air.

“— We can do it some time afterward. In a public place. In broad daylight.”

He raised an eyebrow meaningfully, and Jodie wrung her hands. Of course, this scene didn’t look good to any reasonable human being, and she didn't realize until that moment that _he_ was the one who could get into trouble.

“I’m sorry,” said Jodie.

“It’s fine, really,” Mr. Banner repeated, then looked up to the ceiling, swirling back and forth in his chair. “Uh. What do kids like. Ice Cream?”

“Who doesn’t like ice cream?” Jodie couldn’t help but retort. 

“Lactose… actually, never mind. Everyone likes ice cream, agreed. So,” he started, sitting up straighter, “we can get ice cream. Friday afternoon. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Deal?”

“Okay. Deal.” And something unfolded in her chest as Jodie said the word. With that, she finally acquiesced and turned to go back to her own apartment.

“Oh, I almost forgot —” he bolted out of his seat suddenly, fumbled with the briefcase at his feet, and dug around for something inside.

“Shit — I mean,” he started, then gave up the attempt to find a kid-friendly word, but before she could find a way to joke about it, he was handing her a mauve envelope with a small lump inside.

“I was going to try and find your address and mail it to you, at first, but Pepper told me she’d find you once you’d started,” he explained, and she opened the envelope. She was greeted by the sight of a familiar, heart-shaped pendant, and her breath got caught in her throat.

Her locket. She had run away, and he must have — the Hulk must have —

“It’s my mothers. Was.” Her throat felt so tight, the tell-tale sign that she was about to cry (and god, she must be a lot more tired than she thought) but she held it together as best she could. 

There was only silence, nothing but Jodie’s too-quick breaths, and then, Mr. Banner said quietly: “I’m glad he didn’t break it.”

It wasn’t broken. It didn’t even have a dent. She thought about those impossibly strong hands holding something so fragile and keeping it safe. For some reason, that made her breath hitch even more. 

“Thank you — I gotta go — goodnight,” she managed between breaths, then spun and ran back to where she came from, half-locket clutched in her fist. She could barely hear Mr. Banner call out her name as she made it to the elevator doors. She’d have to explain later, explain what it all meant, but for now, she managed to wait until the elevator doors closed before collapsing into heavy sobs. The relieved, joyful, exhausted sobs of someone who found what was thought to be lost forever. 

Despite her tears, she hadn’t felt this hopeful in a very long time. Maybe that was why she was crying. Hope was a dangerous thing for her to keep around.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha. So much for updating every week, right? I'm sorry, this month has been... a lot for everybody, and I wasn't in the right headspace to work on this, but now I'm hoping to get back on track.
> 
> This is a shorter chapter, but the next one is much longer and just Bruce and Jodie content, so I hope that can make up for it. As usual, comments keep me motivated and I treasure every one of them!

“You know the Hulk is going to kill you next time he comes out, right?”

Bruce marched into the kitchen and Tony had the audacity to look surprised.

“I’m hurt. That hurts me, Banner,” he bemoaned, not looking particularly hurt as he lounged on the sofa. Tony loved to toe the line of charming and infuriating, and like the rest of the team, Bruce also constantly toed the line between laughing at him and wanting to kick him. Right now, he was leaning towards the kicking category.

“I’m serious, Tony,” Bruce said, crossing his arms. “The _fuck_ was that about?”

“What did he do this time?” Pepper asked as she walked in, tablet in hand.

“You always assume I did something wrong.”

“If Bruce is actually pissed at you? You did something wrong.”

Bruce tried not to dwell on how strangely touched he was by Pepper’s statement, and luckily, Tony was too busy flailing to have the attention anywhere but on him.

“Innocent before proven guilty!” he practically howled, and Bruce’s gaze narrowed. 

“You want to explain to me why JARVIS was installed in an intern’s apartment?” 

“What.” Suddenly, Pepper’s attention was razor-sharp.

“Uh,” was the genius’ reply.

“Also, why did JARVIS give a teenage girl access to our lab?” Bruce continued, his tone flat and even, “Which she used? In the middle of the night?” 

“Okay, listen — actually, that wasn’t — I had a plan,” Tony started, holding his arms out in front of him.

“What plan, Tony?” His voice was nowhere near to how loud it could get - admittedly, that volume was only reached when Hulk was in control - but his icy tone must have finally gotten through because something changed in Tony’s expression. It wasn’t fear - and that was always a surprise to Bruce, that no matter how he expressed his less-than-savory emotions, Tony never raised a blaster to his head in preparation - but his face showed the scrambling panic that came with Tony’s dawning realization that he did, in fact, fuck up.

“Okay… not really a plan-plan, but I was gonna invite her over to say thank you, personally, some afternoon while we were working,” he rambled. “If she had said no, she’d say no! I was going to talk to her first!”

“Tony…” Pepper’s jaw looked like it was at risk at snapping. 

“I didn’t think she’d just go down there.”

“You gave an intern free reign of your laboratory,” Pepper slapped her tablet down on the porcelain counter-top. She didn’t raise her voice an octave higher, but both men visibly tensed. “That’s a security risk for you, for Bruce and for her! And that’s not including if she decides to go to the press for information! What will she say, a teenage girl popping in on adults at any time she pleases?”

Remarkably, Tony managed to have the same face of realization that the girl had made last night when Bruce raised that very point. It would be funny if Bruce wasn’t so put-out. He knew Tony was not the best a reading the room, but _really_.

Pepper didn’t let up, pointing a red-nailed finger in Tony’s abashed face, “And don’t get me started on the legal consequences of your little stunt —”

“If I may interrupt,” said an omniscient-sounding voice, “as much as I’m enjoying what I’m seeing, I feel the need to intervene. Mr. Stark did not install me to give Jodie access to the laboratory specifically. He simply forgot to set the limits on my protocols as an assistant to everyone in the tower, Miss Jodie included. As someone who was granted access to my protocols, she could use the same privileges as the others who were designated for my service, which include those in the Avengers facilities.”

“Oh, yeah, _that_ makes it better,” Pepper hissed.

As for Bruce, watching Pepper ream Tony a new one properly satisfied any instantaneous anger he was ready to unleash onto the man himself — despite what most of the world believed, anger was _not_ what brought out the Hulk, and Tony — and now Pepper, evidently — knew that as well. If he were in a more reflective state of mind, he might take a moment to treasure the fact that there were two people in his life unequivocally unafraid of him. But for now, he still had to focus on the problem Tony made for him.

Hand rubbing the bridge of his nose, he sat down on the opposite couch and asked: “Why give her access to JARVIS in the first place?”

“She wrote a letter,” said Tony, still stiff as a board under Pepper’s glare. He said it like it meant anything, but it clearly must have, because when he mentioned it Pepper’s eyes softened slightly as they turned on Bruce.

“What letter?” Bruce asked dumbly.

“A thank-you letter, we think.” Pepper explained, some of the angry lines on her forehead disappearing as she spoke. “We didn’t open it. JARVIS scanned its contents, but we didn’t ask for specifics.”

“What do you mean,” Bruce spoke slowly to Tony like he was trying to get an answer from a toddler, “she wrote a thank-you letter? What does that have to do with giving her access to JARVIS?”

“Well, JARVIS was the only one who read the letter,” said Tony with a shrug. “I just thought she’d want to give it to you in person. And if she didn’t, JARVIS would pull the letter up for you. I was hoping it would be the former after Pepper or someone else with doe-eyes convinced her it was okay.”

“Why didn’t you just.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “ _Give_ me the letter?” Bruce was pretty sure he was getting another one of his tension headaches and he didn’t care for that in the slightest. 

“Because you never read any of the damn letters people send you!” Tony stood up and actually had the gall to looked annoyed at _Bruce_. “I get it, your lonely man act is your brand, or whatever, but seriously, it wouldn’t kill you to take one compliment.” 

Something must have flashed in Bruce’s eyes, because the Other Guy woke up just a tad at those accusatory words. But if anything was evident on Bruce’s face, Tony didn’t let on. If anything, he crossed his arms and didn’t back down, the absolute maniac of a man.

Bruce struggled for something to say as he stared up at Tony, but he couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound absurdly self-pitying, which would, infuriatingly, only prove Tony’s point. But the thought still echoed in his mind, insistent and dragged out to the forefront with the Other Guy’s dangerous rumble. It was the familiar voice that whispered every time Bruce tossed his fan mail into the trash. _You don’t deserve to be thanked. You don’t deserve anything, you filthy little monster._

“I think,” Pepper neatly cut through the tension of the room with a smile that could freeze water, “Next time, Tony should leave minors out of it. Yes?”

“Yes,” Tony automatically agreed, then sighed out the rest of the stiffness. He managed to plaster at least a semi-sincere apologetic look on his face for Bruce, which Bruce coded as extremely sincere for Stark standards, and he relaxed a little himself at the sight of it. 

Tony rubbed the back of his neck, then walked over to the adjacent hallway in the suite. Bruce heard the faint clicks and the gentle slide of a drawer opening before Tony reappeared with an envelope in his hand.

“Look,” Tony said awkwardly, “I didn’t. Go about it the right way. The most Hallmark-touching-way, maybe, in the effort at least? But that didn’t happen.”

Pepper, finally letting some of the ice dissipate from her gaze, asked “Did it go okay with her? The girl?” And Bruce knew that, on some level, the CEO of Stark Enterprises was asking an Avenger. But he could tell by the gentle slope of her brows that this was just Pepper Potts asking Bruce Banner out of genuine curiosity and concern, almost like a friend would. And those kinds of looks still took Bruce off-guard after all these years. He’d never really gotten the hang of being the attention of any sort of tenderness.

“Yeah. Yeah, it did. She’s…” Bruce couldn’t find an adjective to encompass everything he was struck by when he met Jodie. She wasn’t exactly shy, not with deciding to come into his lab in the middle of the night, but neither did she come across as boisterous and reckless. She was bright, obviously, and she took him by surprise when she wanted to match wits almost right away. She seemed a bit… skittish in a way that was uncomfortably familiar, reminding him of years spent lurking in the shadows and checking every corner for a threat. But he didn’t know enough yet to make that call.

“She’s insightful,” he decided on, and he wondered if he didn’t sound a bit more impressed than he had the right to be. “Obviously, whoever hired her made the right choice.” He didn’t know about PR, but she was incredibly bright. He distantly hoped that she was comfortable enough in this overwhelming environment to let that shine through.

Pepper looked at him a bit strangely. “That’s all?”

“Sweet. If I can even say that in a non-creepy way,” Bruce admitted, really hoping that his barely-made friends didn’t think he was that kind of awful human being… even though Tony was literally the person who had put him in this situation, which was fucking annoying because now the man almost looked _pleased_.

“See? Knew you could survive a thank-you.” Tony pressed the letter into Bruce’s chest as he walked by without looking back, making his way right down the hall. “Anyway, I’m thinking about a reno on the pool lounge, what do you think, sweetie?”

“She wanted to interview me,” Bruce said in a lower volume to Pepper, who looked a bit surprised, though at what he was telling her or the sudden anxiety in his voice, he couldn’t tell. “I told her yes, in a public place downtown, obviously, do you think that’s okay?”

Pepper pat his arm and said, “I think that’s fine. She’s an intern, Bruce, the good ones ask for informational interviews.” She explained patiently. Bruce knew that when he offered, of course, but he was incapable of knowing for sure what act would demonize him in the eyes of others nowadays.

Before Bruce could reply, Tony yelled back,“I’m making it a half-hottub half-pool combo but in the same pool, how smart is that?”

Pepper mouthed ‘you okay?’ at Bruce, and he smiled in return with a little nod. Then, she rolled her eyes and followed Tony into a completely different topic.

“You have said some dumb things, Tony, but this —” and this was much more familiar, the easy jabs they shared every day where everyone could see. Bruce listened to the sound of the click of her heels disappearing down the hallway.

It took Bruce a moment to remember that he was still holding the envelope in his hands. Examining it, it had the open fan mail address for the Avengers, and it was addressed to Doctor (after a scribbled out ‘Mister’) Bruce Banner. There was no return address.

Bruce thumbed with the label, then paused. Then, he folded it and put it in his pocket, a mirror of when he did the same with Jodie’s locket. He would read it, he would, just… later. He had work to do down in the lab, that was all.


End file.
